with throngs of bright inhabitants, and would think of the joys
of happy girls who were loved by Christian youths, and who could dare
to tell their friends of their love. But Nina Balatka was no coward,
and she had already determined that she would at once tell her love to
those who had a right to know in what way she intended to dispose of
herself. As to her father, if only he could have been alone in the
matter, she would have had some hope of a compromise which would have
made it not absolutely necessary that she should separate herself from
him for ever in giving herself to Anton Trendellsohn. Josef Balatka
would doubtless express horror, and would feel shame that his daughter
should love a Jew--though he had not scrupled to allow Nina to go
frequently among these people, and to use her services with them for
staving off the ill consequences of his own idleness and ill-fortune;
but he was a meek, broken man, and was so accustomed to yield to Nina
that at last he might have yielded to her even in this. There was,
however, that Madame Zamenoy, her aunt--her aunt with the bitter tongue;
and there was Ziska Zamenoy, her cousin--her rich and handsome cousin,
who would so soon declare himself willing to become more than cousin,
if Nina would but give him one nod of encouragement, or half a smile of
welcome. But Nina hated her Christian lover, cousin though he was, as
warmly as she loved the Jew. Nina, indeed, loved none of the Zamenoys--
neither her cousin Ziska, nor her very Christian aunt Sophie with the
bitter tongue, nor her prosperous, money-loving, acutely mercantile
uncle Karil; but, nevertheless, she was in some degree so subject to
them, that she knew that she was bound to tell them what path in life
she meant to tread. Madame Zamenoy had offered to take her niece to
the prosperous house in the Windberg-gasse when the old house in the
Kleinseite had become poor and desolate; and though this generous offer
had been most fatuously declined--most wickedly declined, as aunt
Sophie used to declare--nevertheless other favours had been vouchsafed;
and other favours had been accepted, with sore injury to Nina's pride.
As she thought of this, standing in the gloom of the evening under the
archway, she remembered that the very frock she wore had been sent to
her by her aunt. But I in spite of the bitter tongue, and in spite of
Ziska's derision, she would tell her tale, and would tell it soon. She
knew her own courage, and t